EU ruling holds website responsible for offensive user comments

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that an Estonian court was
right to fine a news website for anonymous comments posted under one of its
stories

Delfi, one of Estonia’s most popular news sites, appealed against the decision but, in a ruling, the ECHR has upheld the original decision by the Estonian courts. Photo: ALAMY

By Martin Banks

2:49PM BST 18 Oct 2013

MEPs and anti-censorship groups say the judgement sets a "dangerous precedent" which could pave the way for similar cases.

In the ruling, the Strasbourg-based ECHR upheld a court decision against the respected Estonian news organisation, Delfi, which had run an online article about a ferry company making controversial changes to its routes.

The changes attracted widespread criticism from bloggers who posted 185 comments on the Delfi website, 20 of which contained personal threats and offensive language toward the ferry company’s majority shareholder.

He took offence at the comments and the website agreed to remove them immediately but the owner decided to sue the site. In April 2006 the company was awarded 5,000 Estonian kroon.

Delfi, one of Estonia’s most popular news sites, appealed against the decision but, in a ruling, the ECHR has upheld the original decision by the Estonian courts.

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The unanimous ruling from the seven ECHR judges suggested that if a commercial site allowed anonymous comments, “it is both practical and reasonable for the site owner to be held responsible for them.”

It said, “The applicant company [Delfi], by publishing the article in question, could have realized that it might cause negative reactions against the shipping company.”

Delfi is believed to be considering an appeal to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice but UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said the ruling set a “dangerous precedent” for freedom of expression and may dissuade websites from hosting anonymous comments.

He said, "This ECHR judgement makes life incredibly difficult for the growing number of local news websites and blogs which provide a varied and valuable public space.

“These websites do not have the financial or human resources to fight malicious threats to their existence from either politicians or litigants. It is especially harsh as in this case the website owner had taken down the offensive comments as soon as possible.

“The hard lesson to learn is that while the UK is a member of the EU, we must be subservient to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I believe it is the British Supreme Court which should have the final say, not the ECHR.”

Anti-censorship groups fear that news sites and blogs could now be held legally responsible for all the comments put up on their site even if they take them down after a complaint.

Jim Killock, Executive Director of the UK-based organisaton, Open Rights Group, who described it as a “troubling ruling”, adding, "We all rely on defined 'notice and takedown' procedures. If courts don't respect the need for notice before takedown, then websites are going to find themselves in deep trouble."

His concerns are shared by Joe McNamee, Executive Director for European Digital Rights, who called the judgement “reckless” saying, "This baffling logic now appears to render it effectively impossible for an online publication to allow comments without positive identification of the end users.

“Worse still, we know already that many publications already protect themselves by requiring people to log in to almost always American social networks to identify themselves. So much for the human right to privacy in the Convention. This will directly undermine individuals' rights to free speech and indirectly undermine their right to privacy."

However, a spokesman for the ECHR stressed that the ruling was only in relation to the particulars of Estonian law and was not applicable to other cases, except by way of case law. “All this tells us is about Estonian law,” said the spokesman. “It is not applicable to other countries.”